What Are The Gobshites Saying These Days?

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Welcome back to our weekly survey of the state of Our National Dialogue which, of course, is what John Philip Sousa would have come up with, had he composed the Kaplan Test Prep March.

Let us pause before we begin and congratulate (once again) former vice-president Dick Cheney for emerging from the dank canyons of his dreary mind to visit upon us his wisdom, while looking very much as though he is part of a Village People cover band that works karaoke night at the Old Authoritarians Home. There is a reason why we never include Fox News Sunday on this feature, and it mostly has to do with big fish and small barrels, but when The Gitmo Kid comes riding back into town, well, attention must be paid.

Cheney, a Republican vice president from 2001 to 2009 under the Bush administration, told "Fox News Sunday" the National Security Agency-led programs have to remain confidential to keep the information from enemies and that he and other U.S. intelligence officials were concerned about a nuclear attack. "It was 19 guys with box cutters and airplane tickets," but the next time it could have been a "nuclear attack," the 72-year-old Cheney said.

And the smoking gun could have been a mushroom cloud. Aluminum tubes! Uranium from Africa! Atta in Prague! Play YMCA!

Cheney also said the lawmakers advised him not to seek further congressional oversight for fear of leaks and argued that 9/11 attacks in which terrorists killed roughly 3,000 people by hijacking commercial jets and slamming them into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center likely could have been foiled had the surveillance plan already been in place.

Or if anyone in the administration, up to and including the president, had cared enough to pay attention and the idea that Cheney had to be "advised" to curtail congressional oversight on anything is the funniest thing he's ever said.

Cheney said the president has not been "standup" and "forthright"...

OK, we have to stop right now because I think my stomach is on its way to matching Nadia Comeneci's performance in Montreal.

We begin our regular programming at Disco Dave's Disco Dance Party because, unfortunately, there was no international batting around of the tennis balls to pre-empt it this week. Instead, we had a remarkable demonstration of Having Learned Nothing from the people who helped bring us the Iraq War. Senator Huckleberry led off, arguing that we should have been In It To Win It in Syria from jump.

But the goal should be to basically make sure Assad leaves. Last year, Assad was isolated, he had very few friends, he was hanging by a thread. This year, he's entrenched with Hezbollah, Iran, and Russia. Stronger behind that ever. I think our goal should be in the short term is to balance the military power and providing small arms won't do it. So we need to create a no-fly zone to neutralize the Assad's air power, in that view...Under this construct, they can't. And what does it means if they lose? I think it's-- Syria's become a powder keg for the region. There is 60,000 Syrian children in Jordan. The kingdom is under siege in terms of refugees. Hezbollah is all in in Syria, so Lebanon's even more destable (SIC). This has been a nightmare year for Syria. Egypt's going backwards, Lebanon's becoming unstable, Russia's introducing into Syria, threatening to very sophisticated weapons, the chemical weapons caches that I fear the most could fall in the hands of Hezbollah. You've got Al Qaeda now roaming all over Syria. It's a powder keg for the region.

So, naturally, the solution is for the United States military to get heavily involved -- "creating a no-fly zone" involved blowing the hell out of urban neighborhoods all over the country, just so's we're all clear -- in what Huckleberry seems to think is a proxy war with practically everybody in the world. Converting a vicious civil war into one of those seems very much in line with our essential foreign-policy goal of More Enemies In Less Time. Things didn't get any better when they brought out the panel, because everybody seemed to think that the worst thing to do besides nothing, was anything.

ANDREA MITCHELL: Exactly. Now one of the questions that I think also precipitated this is Iran. I think the administration has the intelligence about chemical weapons and we're slow-walking it. They were hoping that they could get to a political negotiations in Geneva, that they've now given up on. And in fact, they want to delay it. They realize that Assad has gained so much strength with Hezbollah, all in, that if they were to go to negotiations now, there'd be no way to remove him. And I think what really precipitated this, moving on that red line, which they really knew about and which Britain and France had plenty evidence of, was Iran. They realize that they are now at war with Iran. And that with Hezbollah and Russian support, that there was no way that Assad was going to lose. And in fact, it wouldn't just be stalemate, Assad would win. The biggest problem they have now going into the G8 is that Russia has categorically denied it, and the U.N.'s secretary general agrees with Russia. So they are challenging the American intelligence and frankly, after the last decade, U.S. intelligence on weapons of mass destruction-- don't have a whole lot of credibility around the world.

Luckily, however, Huckleberry was there to solve Mrs. Greenspan's dilemma by suggesting that we employ the Big Swinging Dick strategy that has worked so well in the past.

I don't think so, David. No boots on the ground is sort of everyone's position, including mine, because the rebels don't want us in there. I think you can neutralize the air power by cratering the runways with cruise missiles. You can set up a no-fly zone by having a aircraft and patriot missile batteries operating out of Turkey and Jordan to neutralize the air power. And here's what I would suggest, that if the war continues, how likely is it that Iran will take us seriously when it comes to their nuclear program if we continue to act indecisively regarding Syria. Look what's happened to Israel over the last year. Their world is melting down. The Russians are not hesitating in helping Assad. Hezbollah helped take back a town the rebels had just a few weeks ago. So the balance of power is really now on Assad's side. As Andrea said, he is winning. And it is not in our interest for him to win. And if we don't do more than add AK-47s into the mix, he will continue to win. And the King of Jordan is going to become toast.

Again, I say, blowing the hell out of Syria will convince Iran not to build any nukes, which it may not be doing anyway, how exactly? It will scare the Russians into doing what, precisely? Enmeshing the United States more deeply in a civil war in which we know practically nothing about anyone on the side that we are supposed to be helping is a tough way to keep the King Of Jordan out of the toaster. But Huckleberry's in it for the long haul.

Well, I think there's two wars. The first war is to displace Assad, to change the balance of military power vis-à-vis Assad so we can get a political solution. The second war is to deal with a radical Islamist who have flown in to aid the rebels. Unfortunately, you're going to have two wars. When Assad falls, you're going to have a war between the average Syrian and the Al Qaeda elements who've come into Syria. Here's the good news, David. I don't think the average Syrian wants to displace Assad and have an Al Qaeda state to replace him. These radical Islamists are coming to the fight because of the security vacuum. They, in my view, do not represent the average Syrian person. Hezbollah, neither does Al Qaeda represent the average Syrian. That's the good news. But they have to be fought.

Huckleberry knows fk-all about what "the average Syrian" thinks about anything, of course, not that he cares very much, either. That's OK, though, because they don't know fk-all about him, either, and they're happier that way. But let a flood of American arms come into the country, or let a few American-made Patriot missiles "crater" the marketplace instead of the runways, or let us arm someone against the side we'd previously armed so as to get rid of Assad, and the "average Syrian" is not going to like us very much. And "two wars," Huckleberry? Go sell that to the average American, who wouldn't know the King Of Jordan if he sat in his lap. Jesus, these people. But it was Mrs. Greenspan who put the capper on a wasted morning, during a discussion of the various NSA revelations.

General, one of the things that I think has been written about from both the left and the right, Peggy Noonan wrote about it this weekend...

Wait. No. Stop right there. Watch out for the cliff. AIEEEEEEEEE!

...is that there is a lack of confidence in the government, which has evolved a variety of administrations.So when you say, "Trust me, this data, the metadata are stored and we're not going to go into it unless there's a court order, unless it's because of a terrorist plot, and then if a judge orders that, it's then turned over to the F.B.I. and then they can pursue and look at the context, so we've got the numbers, but we're not looking, we're not reading." But people no longer, after Benghazi, after I.R.S. certainly, and after a lot of other things, don't have confidence in their government. And that is leading to a disaffection and a disconnection.

I didn't think it was possible, but this may be the dumbest use of Benghazi, Benghazi!, BENGHAZI! of all time. First of all, sadly, the American people seem to be perfectly fine with what the NSA has been doing. I wish they weren't, but there we are. And the American people were hugely dissatisfied with, among other things, the Iraq War, and that didn't seem to trouble the folks very much at the Greenspan dinner salons throughout the Aughts. The idea that the American people's faith in their government has been undermined now by a series of ginned-up demi-scandals, none of which have come to anything, and that we should take the word of a former propagandist for one of the most truthless presidents in history -- starting with the welfare queen in Chicago and going all the way to Iran-Contra -- as to the faith the American people have in their government is such a perfect example of Beltway groupthink that it belongs in the Smithsonian.

Speaking of misbegotten arguments from authority, over on This Week With The Clinton Guy Shocked By Blowjobs, guest host Jonathan Karl took the opportunity to ask Senator Marco Rubio why he can't seem to win the support of crazy people for his immigration-reform efforts.

KARL: OK, you've taken some real heat, especially from the right, on this. I want to go through just this past week, some right wing commentators. You had Ann Coulter say Chuck Schumer is playing Marco Rubio. Erick Erickson said Marco Rubio is either being played the fool or we are being played the fool by Senator Rubio. Glenn Beck called you a pretty nasty name and said he's not on our side. So what do you -- what do you -- what do you say to this and what has happened? I mean, you used to be the guy hailed as a -- as a conservative hero to some of these guys.

OK, so here's Rubio's chance to be a real leader. Here's your "Sister Soujah" moment served up on a platter for him. "Jonathan, all three of the people you named represent why this party has won the popular vote for president precisely once since 1992. Our party simply has got to stop having its agenda driven by the folks in the Chronic Ward of the monkeyhouse." Instead, here's what we got.

Now, I recognize there is a division among conservatives about it. I respect other people's views on it. I understand why they are frustrated by it. I just hope people understand that the reason why I've undertaken this is because this is a major problem that's hurting our country. And -- and the only way I know how to fix problems is to get involved and try to fix it.

A pillar of gelatin, our Marco is.

And we conclude on Face The Nation, where former Hoplite embed Bob Schieffer had some folks over to chat about surveillance. Luckily, these included the aforementioned Ms. Noonan who, as we know, is suddenly Very Concerned about the surveillance state because it is being run by a Democratic presiden...er...because of her lifelong concern for privacy rights. And puppies.

Look, I think this is a perfect time to stop and look at what we are erecting here. What good it can do, but also what bad it can do. It's a very delicate thing when you have a big state that can make people, citizens, feel that they are-- just assumed that they are potentially going to be abused because the number of things the government knows about them. So in a way, there's something very good about the moment we're in, which is that we're stopping and looking.